turned round for another look.
He had intended to go straight to his room, but as he wanted to speak to Frau Grubach
he stopped instead to knock at her door. She was sitting darning at a table, on which lay a
heap of old stockings. K. excused himself awkwardly for knocking so late, but Frau
Grubach was most cordial and would hear of no apology, she was always glad to have a
talk with him, he knew very well that he was her best and most valued boarder. K. looked
round the room; it had reverted completely to its old state, the breakfast dishes which had
stood that morning on the table by the window had apparently been cleared away.
Women’s hands are quietly effective, he thought. He himself might have smashed the
dishes on the spot, but he certainly could never have quietly carried them away. He gazed
at Frau Grubach with a certain gratitude. “Why are you still working at this late hour?” he
asked. They were both sitting at the table now, and from time to time K. buried one hand
in the pile of stockings. “There’s a lot to do,” she said; “during the day my time belongs to
my boarders; for keeping my own things in order I have only the evenings.” “I’m afraid
I’ve been responsible for giving you extra work today.” “How is that?” she asked,
becoming more intent, the work resting in her lap. “I mean the men who were here this
morning.” “Oh, that,” she said, resuming her composure, “that didn’t give me much to do.”
K. looked on in silence while she took up her darning again. (“She seems surprised that I
mentioned it,” he thought, “she seems to think it not quite right that I should mention it. All the more need for me to do so. I couldn’t mention it to anyone but this old woman.”) “It
must certainly have made more work,” he said at last, “but it won’t happen again.” “No,
that can’t happen again,” she said reassuringly, with an almost sorrowful smile. “Do you
really mean it?” asked K. “Yes,” she said softly, “and above all you mustn’t take it too
much to heart. Lots of things happen in this world! As you’ve spoken so frankly to me,
Herr K., I may as well admit to you that I listened for a little behind the door and that the
two warders told me a few things too. It’s a matter of your happiness, and I really have that
at heart, more perhaps than I should, for I am only your landlady. Well, then, I heard a few
things, but I can’t say that they were particularly bad. No. You are under arrest, certainly,
but not as a thief is under arrest. If one’s arrested as a thief, that’s a bad business, but as for
this arrest — It gives me the feeling of something very learned, forgive me if what I say is
stupid, it gives me the feeling of something learned which I don’t understand, but which
there is no need to understand.”
“What you’ve just said is by no means stupid, Frau Grubach, at least I’m partly of the
same opinion, except that I judge the whole thing still more severely. There’s nothing
learned about it. It’s completely null and void. I was taken by surprise, that was all. If
immediately on wakening I had got up without troubling my head about Anna’s absence
and had come to you without regarding anyone who tried to bar my way, I could have
breakfasted in the kitchen for a change and could have got you to bring me my clothes
from my room; in short, if I had behaved sensibly, nothing further would have happened,
all this would have been nipped in the bud. But one is so unprepared. In the Bank, for
instance, I am always prepared, nothing of that kind could possibly happen to me there, I
have my own attendant, the general telephone and the office telephone stand before me on
my desk, people keep coming in to see me, clients and clerks, and above all, my mind is
always on my work and so kept on the alert, it would be an actual pleasure to me if a